Overview
- A Pensacola-area fishing charter recovered a damaged delta-wing airframe from waters near Eglin Air Force Base on Saturday and notified local authorities after hauling it aboard.
- Eglin AFB acknowledged a recent lost test article but declined to confirm whether the recovered airframe is its property, and local agencies collected the object from the charter vessel.
- Photos and reporting show the airframe resembles the FLM-136/LUCAS family and is missing the engine, propeller and nose cone, damage that observers say is common after water impact.
- The FLM-136 began as a target drone reverse-engineered from the Iranian Shahed-136 and was weaponized into the low-cost LUCAS system made by Spektreworks, which CENTCOM has said is in operational use and costs about $35,000 per unit.
- The incident highlights routine overwater testing on Eglin’s vast Gulf range, raises scrutiny of recovery procedures and public notice when test articles are lost, and could prompt reviews of range safety and transparency practices.